NICE document recommends Amgen’s Lumykras (sotorasib) to treat non-small-cell lung cancer
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published a final appraisal document recommending Amgen’s Lumykras (sotorasib) for use within the Cancer Drugs Fund, for treating a type of lung cancer in adults whose disease has progressed or who cannot tolerate chemotherapy.
The treatment will address a significant unmet need in previously treated patients with a mutation which was previously thought to be untreatable.
The Cancer Drugs Fund was established in 2011 to provide a means for the NHS to provide cancer patients with drugs initially rejected due to not being cost effective. From April 2011 to March 2014 the fund provided 100,000 people with cancer access to treatments.
The NICE document recommends Lumykras for use as an option for treating KRAS G12C mutation-positive locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in adults, who cannot tolerate platinum-based chemotherapy, or anti-PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapy. Sotorasib is an oral targeted therapy.
Professor Sanjay Popat, consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, commented: “Sotorasib is a step change for these patients, allowing them to receive daily tablets rather than chemotherapy in the hospital. I’m therefore delighted NICE has approved this drug for patients via the Cancer Drug Fund.
“Importantly, in parallel the NHS is making excellent progress in molecular analysis of lung cancer patients to find the KRAS G12C mutation and identify those patients who are most likely to benefit from this treatment.”
“This recommendation demonstrates all the hard work that is happening to develop new treatment options for people with lung cancer,” Paula Chadwick, chief executive of Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, added. “The pandemic has had a devastating effect on these patients, potentially denying many of them the chance of an earlier, and possibly life-saving diagnosis. However, the advances in new treatments like sotorasib offer some hope by giving people another treatment option.”
Lung cancer is the third most common cancer, with an estimated 48,000 new cases diagnosed in the UK every year, 85% of these being NSCLC.
